Just to clarify, games bought from Steam do NOT require the Steam client to be running in order to play them. I play games offline all the time when I am on the train or on a plane, and I find it quicker to navigate to the game on my hard drive than to wait for the Steam client to boot up.

This problem only occurs when the developer deliberately codes their game that way. For example: earlier versions of the AGS Steam plugin assumed that your Steam client would be running, so it would throw up an error if it wasn't. That was the GAME'S problem, not Steam's. Steam is not DRM in the technical sense.

It depends. Smaller indie games, or games not tied to the Steam API may work. But, for instance, if I randomly pick a game I have installed at the moment (in this case "Betrayer"), and try to launch the .exe from the game's directory without Steam running, it will first boot Steam, and then run. There's no way around it. Steam can be in offline mode, sure, so there's no DRM check happening (at least no online check), but the games .exe is looking for the Steam .exe and is useless without it.

Unless you're just talking about AGS games, which I agree are unlikely to have Steamworks tied to them in the same way. But in most cases, I'd argue that Steam is very much DRM.

I quite like achievements. I rarely go out of my way to get them, though, but it's nice to have a reminder that you did something in a game. In that respect, I guess I prefer linear achievements, but I can see the (relative) value in the hard to obtain ones too.

Trading cards on the other hand...

Unless you're invested in Steam as a gaming "space", I can understand how they would hold little attraction. For those of us who use Steam, cards are the only way to craft badges. Crafting badges gives you EXP. EXP gives you levels. Levels give you friend slots. If you want to have a lot of Steam friends, you're going to need a lot of slots.

And, right or wrong, the gamification of Steam itself is a very real thing.

As a fan of Romero's work since I was old enough to operate a VCR, people need to look outside the zombie oeuvre to see some of, in my opinion, his finest work. I think my favorite non-zombie Romero flick is "The Crazies", which also happens to feature my favorite Romero sequence:

I'd also recommend "Martin" and "Knightriders".

As an aside, I've been reading comments like "Man, he was old!", "At least he had a full life!", and "Was he still alive?!" 'round the net, and to be honest I'm a little surprised. He was only 77, and I'm saying that without a shred of sarcasm. He smoked liked a chimney though, and he looked old beyond he years for the better part of two decades. But 77 is not ancient, and is, in my opinion, just a wee bit young for people not to say so.

I don't normally gush, but I'm really loving this game at the moment. It's available on PC, but I'm playing it on the Vita. It's mostly a survival horror, in the loosest sense, but it's also got a hint of adventure game about it. Plus, and excuse the hyperbole, it has one of the greatest openings I've experienced in recent memory.

It puts most other so-called "horror" games to shame, as it manages to elicit quite a jolt from a story about a little girl searching for his sister. And her dog. Oh, Christ...the dog. I...

Man...

If anyone has a Vita, Sony are having a "Big in Japan" sale over on PSN, and you can get Yomawari in a bundle with the developers previous game (htoL#NiQ: The Firefly Diary) for a steal. That is, if you consider €12.99 (or your regional equivalent) as a steal. Which I do!

So a handful of people depend on AGS to make a living. So what? They outlaid no money for the program, and pay no licensing fees to use it in a commercial capacity. If I had a commercial AGS game in the works (and who says I don't?), I wouldn't automatically assume that I could then demand the whole AGS project lean into my way of thinking because I have a couple of quid riding on it. Like I said earlier, if AGS doesn't meet their need, and they have the money to pay for a commercial engine (which, let's be honest, would cost a fraction of the amount required to pay a programmer to develop AGS for an indefinite period) then pay for one! I'm not saying it's current AGS or nothing, but can we at least stop decrying a future in which we don't monetize the community?

Instead of this 1% demanding how we should decide our future, and dictating who has a right to talk about it (the cheek! ) based on the fact that commercial endeavors are something they need to think about, how about we get our shit in order (I mean, secret rewrites of the engine going on, while the person in the driving seat of development has a public existential crisis about the validity of the current engine?! Way to go guys. FFS!) and secure the immediate future of the program.

Crimson Wizard is out, it seems. That sucks, but he owes us nothing, and has given us more than we had any right to expect. So many thanks to him, and I wish him all the best.

Now, what do we do next? Any of you secret-Santas interested in a spot of philanthropy?

I am not following this, tbh, what is a difference between "native support" and "third-party ports of the engine"?

Well, what I mean is that we won't get a version of AGS that has a "Export to..." option for iOS/Android/etc that presents you with a ready to publish file for the App Store or Google Play.

A lot of people seem to want that one-click option, along the lines of what Game Maker does. My argument is that this expectation is too much, for the situation we find ourselves in, and that, unless we're talking about a mythical rewrite of a mythical AGS 4.0, we would be better suited putting a pin in that particular line of thinking. Instead of wringing our hands over what AGS can't do, we should be ensuring that what it can do remains supported.

But let me clarify, because I'm starting to confuse myself. How I see it is, and correct me if I'm wrong, AGS 3.40 by Crimson Wizard is the official version of AGS, as opposed to, for instance, the Draconian build of Alan V. Drake. As it stands, projects created with AGS 3.40 can be run on other platforms through the use of a third-party ScummVM-like wrapper (Android, PSP, etc) or through a combination of the existing Mac port and some extra technical wizardry involving other coders (iOS/Mac). Without a rewrite of AGS from the ground up, it's highly unlikely that these methods will be supplanted any time soon.

If we want to keep that official AGS 3.4x build going, I feel we desperately need to pare back people's expectations, and jettison everything that isn't integral to achieving the best possible version of that official build that we can, so that future maintenance will be focused, concentrated, and kept to a minimum of fuss. If this means no ground-breaking new features, or losing backwards-compatibility and old OS support, so be it. This also means that multi-platform support should remain the domain of those willing to put the work in, and not something that should fall on the shoulders of the person in charge of overseeing continued development of the offical build. This isn't to say that this person can't be mindful of these other coders work, though.

If there comes a point in the future were somebody wants to attempt a rewrite of AGS, be it you or somebody else, that's great. All the things 3.4x can't do and all the features it lacks can be tackled then, and everybody's wishes and dreams can be fulfilled.

We keep hearing about how the old code is a mess, and how it holds back what can be achieved, creates bottlenecks, etc. That may be, but, though it might be ugly, it works. We're playing games, free and commercial, that exist because AGS 3.40 does what it's supposed to do.

But in my opinion, the changes that AGS needs may only be solved by rewriting very large parts of it, which is comparable to writing an engine anew. Of course, that's just me, because other people seem to think that AGS is pretty good as it is now.

I think this is the crux of the situation. There are those who think AGS is fine as it is, and, like Dave Gilbert says, what we should be concerned about is ensuring that the games we produce with it continue to function on current, and future, systems. It just so happens that I agree, and that this is how I would like to see us proceed.

As mentioned, I think backwards-compatibility, support for older OS, and multi-platform support should be wound down, if it helps lighten the maintenance of the core code-base. Instead of far-reaching dreams of AGS evolving into something entirely new and all-encompassing, we should be simplifying what we have, and lightening the load on whoever decides to continue with development, be it one person or a team. The less the engine has to juggle, the less that can go wrong. This isn't to say that innovation will die, or that no new features will ever be added to future versions of AGS (like I said earlier, the code is open-source, so people are free to experiment on their own time), it just means that we shouldn't rely solely on those innovations to come from the "official" build.

Things we need to stop doing:

1. Talking about native iOS/Android/Mac/etc port support in the 3.x builds. It's not going to happen. The best you can hope for is third-party ports of the engine, such as the Android and PSP ports currently available. If you want an engine that does all that, switch to a different engine, or code your own. If you can't code your own...too bad.

2. Talking about bringing in professional programmers. Just...stop.

3. Making this all about money. It's not. And attempting to pay someone to do something they have clearly lost interest in doing isn't going to help matters.

Things we need to do:

1. Invite people who have used AGS to it fullest to informally discuss it's future, away from prying eyes. I would include anybody who has released commercial AGS games (Dave Gilbert, Grundislav, etc.) and those who have maintained or contributed, or are interested in doing so, to the development of the engine and editor (Crimson Wizard, Alan V. Drake, etc.), and from there...

2. ...plan out a road-map for future development of AGS. I can't stress enough how important it is that we have some sort of ground plan in place before making any drastic decisions.

3. ?...seriously, I don't know what comes next. Which is why steps one and two are so damn important!